I'm Rosie Garan, and you're listening to The Wirecutter Show.

Hey there, it's Rosie.

In our last episode, Christine and I talked with Wirecutter editorial director Marguerite Preston about the gear you need to upgrade your coffee setup at home.

We covered grinders, different brewing methods, and other techniques to develop the flavor you want in your morning brew.

So go check that out if you haven't heard it. There's one important element of a great cup of coffee we didn't have

time to talk about, and that's the coffee beans themselves. Every cup of coffee starts off as a ripe

coffee cherry, the fruit of the coffee plant.

The seeds of that plant get harvested, dried, roasted, and packaged up as coffee beans.

Every step of the coffee production process is an opportunity to change the way a cup eventually will taste.

From the type of coffee plant you grow to the temperature at which you roast the beans.

To be honest, I find that a bit overwhelming.

I've been a wannabe coffee snob for years, and I still struggle at the grocery store or at my local coffee shop,

deciphering the words on the back of a bag of beans.

How do I experiment with new brands or new coffee roasters and still have confidence that I'm

actually going to like the taste? So to understand that, I'm going through Coffee 101 with

Sum Nyai. Some is co-founder of Coffee Project New York, which began as a coffee shop in New York's

East Village, and it has since expanded into roasting, wholesale,

retail, education. Some also happens to be a certified cue grader, which I've just learned is

essentially the equivalent of a Somalié in wine. So after the break, some's going to tell me

about how to buy coffee beans that will end up in a cup of coffee I love.

So stick around.

We're back with Sumnye, coffee expert and co-founder of Coffee Project New York.

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